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CTV News
3 days ago
- General
- CTV News
Montreal's Housing Hotline fundraising to keep decades-old service running
Arnold Bennett wants to be there for tenants in trouble and is fundraising to keep the Montreal Housing Hotline connected. Moving day is just a month away for Quebecers, and Arnold Bennett wants to be there for tenants in trouble. He's been running the Montreal Housing Hotline since the 1970s. 'People call with all kinds of questions. We can do advocacy in the sense of steering them in the right direction and proposing strategies and referring them to lawyers and other things that the rental board will not do,' said Bennett. He says he about 30 calls per day, and the hotline is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday. All expenses are paid out of his own pocket, and now he's asking the community for help. Earlier this week, Bennett set up a GoFundMe hoping it will help cover some of the costs – which include phone and internet bills, electricity, technical support and a few staff members. It's also one of the few resources for anglophones in Quebec. The province is in the throes of a housing crunch, and Bennett is no stranger to housing policy. He says legislation has had some major improvements since the he started a housing clinic in the '80s. He was among those who fought for bans on condo conversions and pushed back against renovictions. Bennett Arnold Bennett wants to be there for tenants in trouble and is fundraising to keep the Montreal Housing Hotline connected. (Swidda Rassy/CTV) He remembers when rent increases between 12 and 30 per cent were allowed, 'and it had extremely serious effects on people.' Now he says politicians are rolling protections back. 'The right of tenants to be able to transfer or sign a lease was undermined by the current government, causing a serious problem in terms of being able to avoid discrimination in housing,' he said. 'The last three years got very bad, and that's combined with another cyclical problem, a housing shortage. And that housing shortage means that the door is open to gouging and units aren't available.' The problem isn't just hitting low-income families – it's extended well into the middle class. 'Everybody's having problems,' said Bennett. 'There's never enough services … Everybody's short-staffed and there's time constraints.' And Bennett isn't just getting calls from Montrealers. He says people from Laval, Quebec City and the townships reach out because 'there was nothing where they were, especially if they were anglophones or allophones.' Bob Jones Bob Jones was one of Arnold Bennett's first hires for his housing hotline. He calls Bennett a 'guiding light' for tenants. (Swidda Rassy/CTV) Bob Jones remembers when he first started volunteering with Bennett in the late '80s. A friend of his needed help with a repossession case, but Bennett was seeing hundreds of people every week. So, Jones decided to volunteer. Three months later he was one of Bennett's first hires. He remembers visiting tenants who had issues with their landlords who cut off their electricity and calling the police. 'We'd say, there's a theft of services here. Sometimes, we'd have to explain the process to the police, because they weren't that knowledgeable in rental law, and we tried to get the problem solved,' Jones told CTV News. 'Sometimes it involved sitting down, writing a letter. Sometimes it involved calling the landlord and seeing if they could fix it.' He says Bennett's dedication is needed. Even on weekends, Bennett will sometimes keep the phone line open. Jones calls him a 'guiding light' at a time where rents are skyrocketing, and people are facing evictions and false repossessions. 'If something doesn't happen soon, there'll be more people homeless on the streets than able to live in their apartments,' said Jones. 'Because right now for NDG, the average rent for three and a half is $1,300 that is unaffordable for most people working minimum wage or even two jobs at minimum wage … and some tenants don't know their rights.' Though he's hoping the community will have his back, Bennett says he's prepared to keep going 'hand to mouth.' Nothing will stop him from being there for tenants. 'Retire? You mean, when they carry me out on a stretcher. It'll have to be involuntary,' he said. With files from CTV News Montreal's Swidda Rassy
CBC
3 days ago
- Business
- CBC
Founder of Montreal's Housing Hotline seeks help to keep decades-long service running
Social Sharing Reminiscing with a chuckle, Arnold Bennett describes his younger self as "one of those student radicals back in the day." Bennett first wrote an article about tenants' rights in 1969 for the McGill Daily, one of the university's campus newspapers. Within a few years, he had established himself as a go-to resource on the issue of renters' rights in Quebec, going door-to-door and encouraging tenants to get together and speak up against housing injustices. In 1974, he launched the Housing Hotline — a phone service that helps frustrated tenants, and some landlords — navigate disputes. Decades later, however, Bennett is seeking help to avoid shutting it down. There were much fewer housing advocacy groups then there are now and services in English were limited, Bennett recalls, but he's adamant that his hotline still helps address a major need. Fighting for your rights, he says, involves more than just knowing the law. "People still need interpretation. They need to be pointed strategically in certain directions. It's not just a matter of knowing what the rules are," Bennett said. "You have to know what's the best approach that you should use in dealing with a certain landlord or a certain problem, how to organize with your neighbours, how to use the city inspectors." WATCH | Here are your options if your landlord raises your rent: Landlord raising your rent? Here are your rights in Quebec 55 years ago Duration 2:18 For much of the last 50 years or so, Bennett has funded the hotline out of pocket, using his revenue from a business he used to run. He's now raising funds to help cover basic expenses like a landline, a cellphone or internet access. "I have fees for certain accounting services for reports that I have to submit to the government," he said. "Even before you start talking about paying for an assistant, or anything like that — it adds up." In addition to the hotline, Bennett ran a housing clinic from 1981 up until 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced such in-person activities to shut down. The free clinics were attended by housing lawyers and legal assistants who could offer legal advice and represent tenants at the housing tribunal. Bennett also served as a Montreal city councillor during the 1970s and 80s. 'A major loss' if hotline shuts down Bob Jones, a resident of Montreal's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighbourhood, remembers walking into the housing clinic in 1988 with a friend who was getting evicted from his home. He described the clinic that day as "utter chaos," with 80 to 100 people waiting in line to see the clinic's staff to get advice. Jones, who had just left a job, offered to volunteer at the clinic, and he eventually spent 20 years working for or with Bennett. "Some of us would actually go with them to the [housing tribunal] and we'd prepare their cases, keep them calm," he said. "We weren't allowed to talk or plead but we had already prepared them beforehand so that they knew what to say and when to say it." Marvin Rotrand, a former Montreal city councillor, says he met Bennett just before the 1982 municipal elections. He said the tenants' rights advocate's ability to provide "effective service in English" is something a lot of the newer housing groups still fail to provide today. "A lot of people turn to Arnold," Rotrand said. "Clearly, it would be a major loss in services if the Housing Hotline had to close." Bennett is confident the hotline will remain, even if the service isn't what it once was. "They'll have to carry me out on a stretcher," he said laughing. WATCH | Tips on how to handle an eviction notice: Got an eviction notice? Here's what to do 1 year ago Duration 1:00 Eviction and repossession notices in Quebec are often issued in late December, but tenants have options if they want to contest them.
